Theme Song: "Everlasting Love" - Carl Carlton
Previously on Chaos Under The Big Top: The College Years... James and his 6-months pregnant older sister, Jiselle, take some time to bond and rock out with one another at a Nickelback concert in Columbia, MD.
CONGRATULATiONS, JISELLE! :-D While almost everyone else has left campus for Reading Day Weekend, I'm left stranded here in Gettysburg! Around 7PM Friday night, a mysterious stream of Salsa/Reggae music starts BLAAAARING outside my bedroom window and continues for well over 3 hours. I draw the shade and scan the area, but still have no clue where the music's coming from. I hope it's not coming from the Funeral Home next door... Ewewew.
At 11:45PM (Eastern Standard Time), I receive a text message from Mama that reads:
AVA WAS BORN TODAY SIS IS DOING GREATThat's right, I'm now officially an UNCLE, y'all, OWWWW!! But unfortunately, I'm stuck here and I won't get to hold lil' Ava Denise for quite a while. That said, I am glad that Mom didn't drive down and get me today, because she just might've missed the birth, when she's the one who has spent every waking moment taking care of my sister while Jeff's working 'round the clock.
As I look at the oriental butterfly musicbox I bought for unborn Ava over the summer, I'm reminded of my responsibilities as her Godfather. :-DD YEAH, that's right, not only am I the uncle but also the Godfather. For those not in the know, in the Catholic religion, the godfather plays an important role in the child's upbringing and is OBLIGATED to take care of the child if anything happens to the parents. But for me, that's waaaay too much of a possibility. Seriously, my sister has ALWAYS been extremely susceptible to every illness on the planet, and Jeff's over 40 and recently had a colonscopy. 
Even before Ava's birth, I've had a decent amount of input on baby matters, specifically the name. Originally, they were leaning towards VERY Italian names, like Vereducha and Freschetta, and each time I'd have to stop Jiselle and say, "Just because it's a pretty word doesn't mean you name your kid after it." Then, there was the debate between the E-V-A and A-V-A spelling, and once again, I have to say, "I'll be damned if my niece is named after the most famous whore in all of history." *long pause* Of course, I'm talking about Eva "Evita" Peron. What can I say? I'm more of an Ava Gardner fan myself.
You may not know this, but Jeff's request that I play Godfather to his newest child came totally out of the blue. It was on a sunny July afternoon at Tick Neck Park where I was entertaining Joey and John, my WONNNDERFUL step-nephews (from Jeff's earlier marriage) with my crazy acrobatic skills. And as I was carrying them back to the car, he said, "James, you'll make a terrific godfather." Say what, J? ;-D And the truth is, I was and still am OVER-THE-MOON ECSTATIC about this honor. I love my nephews and my niece: I would die for them, I would kill for them, I would brave the monkey bars for them... Well, you get my point.
The great thing is that my parents feel just as passionately about them as I do, if not more. Unbeknownst to me, at our Memorial Day barbecue, Jeff faced some open hostility from a few of my less tactful relatives from New York: one of them spouted off some bigoted quote from the bible about "sticking to your own race"; my grandma said something along the lines of "I can't believe my son's having a mixed grandchild." Needless to say, I was not happy about hearing this days later. And luckily, neither were my parents. After Jeff casually mentioned it (and had shrugged it off), my parents took it upon themselves to tell my grandmother and that other guy that they wouldn't stand for ANYONE insulting a member of our family. And Dad told HIS OWN MOTHER to leave and not come back until she apologized to them. And I can truly say, I've never been prouder of him.
No comments:
Post a Comment